To install youtube-dl:

• Recommended way (latest version):

  
  
  
  
  
  1. Open a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T or searching Terminal in the dash.
  
  

  2. Install youtube-dl with this command (you'll be prompted for your password):

     
     
     

     sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl && sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
     
     

  
  



• Not recommended way (older version):

  
  
  
  
  
  1. Open a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T or searching Terminal in the dash.
  
  

  2. Install youtube-dl with this command (you'll be prompted for your password):

     
     
     

     sudo apt-get install youtube-dl
     
     

  
  

To use youtube-dl:

1. To select where to save the video, you can follow these steps:
   
   
   
   
   • Type cd on the terminal.
   
   
   • Press Space
   
   
   • Drag the folder from File Manager and drop it on the terminal.
   
   
   • If you skip this step, the video will be saved on your home folder.
   
   



2. To download the video you can use one of these procedures:

   
   
   

   2.1. Run youtube-dl video_url where video_url is the URL of the video.

   
   
   

   2.2. If you want to download many videos, you can follow these steps instead of 2.1:

   
   
   
   
   

   • Run the below command:

     
     
     

     xargs youtube-dl
     
     

   
   
   • Repeat the following procedure for each link:
     
     
     
     
     • Paste a link.
     
     
     • Press Enter
     
     
   
   
   • Press Ctrl+D
   
   
   
   
   

   2.3. If do you have a plain text file with a list of links, you can download them this way:

   
   
   
   
   
   • Type cat on the terminal.
   
   
   • Press Space
   
   
   • Drag the file form the File Manager and drop it on the terminal.
   
   
   • Press Space
   
   
   • Type | xargs youtube-dl
   
   
   • Press Enter
   
   



3. Now the video(s) will download to the selected folder.

Some final thoughts:

• On the method 2.3 the final command should look like this:

  
  
  

  cat '/home/foo/Desktop/myawesomevideos.txt' | xargs youtube-dl
  
  



• You can also use the URL of a channel and youtube-dl will save the entire channel.


• You can update youtube-dl with sudo youtube-dl -U


• You can see all the options of youtube-dl with youtube-dl --help

Thanks to user185719 and Michael Grünewald for their contributions to this answer.